HTC Thunderbolt

Vince over at SlashGear got his hands on the long anticipated, and often delayed, HTC Thunderbolt by Verizon and considering it's 4g hardware is "seasoned," the impressions are positive. The design of the Thunderbolt standard for an HTC handset, large 4.3" screen, metal chassis, industrial look. And while the display is a standard WVGA TFT touchscreen, the colors are impressively crisp and warm. And the design is actually narrower than most 4G phones, considering the extra space needed for it's built in metal kickstand.

Users of the new HTC Thunderbolt may be quite happy with the phone's touchscreen display ... so long as they don't show it next to the Google Nexus S or the Atrix 4G. Comparing the Thunderbolt's TFT display with the Google Nexus S Super AMOLED display or even the Atrix 4g qHD display, it really shows just how muted and washed out the images from the TBolt really look. But according to the review by Vince over at SlashGear, it's still a pretty impressive display. Users just shouldn't succumb to display envy.

A new Verizon commercial about the HTC Thunderbolt has hit the airwaves and it's focus is how fast it can work on the Verizon 4G network. The ad, shows presents a near real time capability of the phone to transmit video over the Verizon network as it's user attaches it to a radio controlled helicopter in order to broadcast a message of a party he's having that night. Then, with the party in full swing, users are treated to a music video that is wirelessly streamed from the Thunderbolt to a video projector screen. Verizon is clearly positioning the Thunderbolt to those who feel the need for speed. But is the Thunderbolt really THAT fast, or is it a case of commercial artistic license?

We've been passed some rather interesting information on the battery life of the HTC ThunderBolt from our pal Vince over on SlashGear - specifically, that the first day using it didn't add up to a very good long life of usage. We'll be getting our review model in later today, but for now, let's take a peek at one test that revealed much less than a full day's work on a single charge. And note - this is indeed only one test, and there's much more testing to be done, but it is a real-world situation nonetheless.

Verizon's HTC Thunderbolt 4G was already up for pre-order at Amazon yesterday, but right on schedule the carrier itself has thrown open orders for the LTE smartphone. Priced at $249.99 with a new, two-year agreement - or $599.99 full retail - you'll need a voice and data package but get free mobile hotspot tethering until May 15.
After that, Verizon is offering 2GB of mobile hotspot use a month for a further $20. Your money gets you Android 2.2 Froyo, HTC Sense, an 8-megapixel main camera, 1.3-megapixel front camera and 32GB of storage.
Of course, the biggest thing about the Thunderbolt is the speed, so head over here for all the performance benchmarking your heart could desire.

Oh so you'd like to make a purchase of that phone we've been posting about all day long and will get in the mail tomorrow? Let's talk about how you can get that phone for under $200, shall we? We've received a tip by our favorite clown-related forum member, ClownBaby, that notes how Amazon Wireless has the HTC ThunderBolt for the low low price of only $179.99 (with a two year agreement, of course.) This is currently the lowest amount of cash you're going to be paying for this fabulous device. Would you like to know more?

Our sister site SlashGear has their review unit of the HTC ThunderBolt and they've sent us over a sample of the video quality they're seeing on the back camera of the HTC ThunderBolt and lemme tell ya - it's pretty much amazing. As you may already know, the HTC ThunderBolt has an 8-megapixel camera on its back that's capable of recording at 720p HD, at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. EDIT: CORRECTION: This video is actually not even at the full resolution, as it's been discovered to have been at the default 800x480. Even better! Fat! Let's take a peek at what that looks like below, and don't forget, if you haven't heard me write this already, we're getting our own ThunderBolt unit in tomorrow.

We'll be running our own benchmarks when we get our own ThunderBolt tomorrow, but for now, let's have a look at what SlashGear's been doing all afternoon, as they got their Verizon superstar phone earlier today! The tests began with a bit of the ol' Sun Spider browser testing. What SlashGear found was that this phone, while fast on the downloads, isn't the speediest phone out there today as far as Sun Spider sees it - while the HTC ThunderBolt grabbed a 6031.9ms, the Motorola ATRIX 4G (also on Android 2.2 Froyo running with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor) handled the test at 3960.8ms - and smaller is better.

Let's be clear before a fire is started - the amount of time you're going to sit and wait for the HTC ThunderBolt to boot up is not any different from any other modern phone you've got in your hand right this moment. Have you heard of the Fast Boot the ThunderBolt is capable of? That exists, but it's not the only way the phone starts, it's just an option. One of the reasons this Fast Boot doesn't just work every time so that if you've got apps that might not boot up or load up properly with the Fast Boot, you've got the option to boot up in regular mode.

Behold the HTC ThunderBolt as our sister-site SlashGear unboxes it. The oddest thing happens when you first glance at the box - it's black. There's nothing on it! That is, until you get a closer look in the light. Just punched-out letters all around, HTC, Verizon, and ThunderBolt around the sides and the bottom, with a bunch of copyright information across the back. When you take off the top, the inside appears red. This is excellent packaging design if I do say so myself. Here at Android Community we'll have to wait until tomorrow (we hope!) to get our own review model in, but even from the video filmed by our main homie Vince, you can see the power emanating from the box just surrounding one of the most widely anticipated phones of 2011 (and it's not even spring yet!) Welcome the rain storms, thunderbolts (lightening?) everywhere!